Recording Details

Abstract

More often than not, astrophysical probes are superior to direct laboratory tests when considering light, very weekly interacting particles and it takes clever strategies and/or ultra-pure experimental setups for direct tests to be competitive. In this talk, I will review the astrophysical side of the story with a particular focus on dark photons and axion-like particles. I will also present some recent results on the emission process of dark photons with mass below 10 keV from the interior of stars. Compared to previous analyses, limits on dark photons are significantly improved, to the extent that many dedicated experimental searches find themselves inside astrophysically excluded regions. However, constraints on the atomic ionization rate from a solar flux imposed by Dark Matter experiments offer a new test of such states, surpassing even the most stringent astrophysical limits. The model also serves as a prototype scenario for energy injection in the early Universe and I will show how cosmology offers unique sensitivity when laboratory probes are out of reach. Time permitting, I may also briefly comment on very light axions and their cosmology.